Fulham FC introduces iPad-controlled CCTV to control crowd trouble

Fulham football club has installed a CCTV system which can be monitored and controlled by staff in their Craven Cottage ground using tablet computers and smartphones.

Security staff at Fulham’s football ground can use their iPads to control the CCTV cameras in the stadium (Picture: YouTube)

The technology, which was developed for airport security systems, allows ground staff to individually manipulate each of the 63 cameras in the stadium while on the move.

By moving their fingers across the screen of the iPads and iPhones they have been given, security officials can move the view of each camera and zoom in and out to investigate small outbreaks of anti-social behaviour among the tens of thousands of fans.

The high-definition cameras are connected by ethernet, and video is saved on in-house cloud storage system for easy access using wireless devices connected to the club’s private network.

Fulham FC’s head of IT projects, Nicolas Pendlebury, told the BBC that they can now view incidents that were taking days to recover within seconds.

He also said the quick and easy access to images from the HD cameras allowed the football club to act instantly to identify people causing trouble in the ground.

Mr Pendlebury said: ‘Say there are five fans in the away end breaking seats, we would bookmark the image in the application, email those photos to one of our response team and say ‘please eject these people’.

‘They can’t argue it is not them. It stands up in court if we need to take it there.’

The club are also hoping to incorporate facial recognition to identify known troublemakers as they enter the football stadium.